Order Couldn't Stop the
Weather by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, available
from Amazon.com by clicking on the CD cover above!

The first time I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan live in concert, he was
close enough to reach out and touch. Literally. Vaughan and Double
Trouble were playing at a long-gone Clearwater, Florida nightspot,
Mr. T’s Club 19 in the mid-1980s. (It was next to the also
long-gone Peaches Records & Tapes. I think the site is a Sam’s
Club, now. Naturally.)

MARK PROCT podcast excerpt: "It
was hard to believe what happened to Stevie the night before and we
were not sure what we we were going to see (at the crash site). The
FAA was already onsite and they were very nice to Jimmie and let us
go up the hill to the site. The amazing part of this was that
Jimmie was looking for Stevie's cross. We were there for a while
and couldn't find it. We went to leave and a guy ran up to the car
we were in. In this field he had found the cross and handed it to
Jimmie. It was amazing."

I was sitting at the cool kids’ table – Tampa Tribune
rock critic David Okamoto was there, as were Bill Templeton and
Eric Snider, editors of the local music mag called, cleverly,
Music. I was covering the show for the St. Petersburg
Times. All of us had heard of the blistering blues guitarist
from Texas and we all wanted to see what the fuss was about in
person.

Order Tuff Enuff by The
Fabulous Thunderbirds, available from Amazon.com by clicking on the
CD cover above!

It took about 10 seconds to know Stevie Ray was the genuine
article.

MARK PROCT podcast excerpt: "The
Fabulous Thunderbirds were a ragtag group in Austin. I'd seen them
at Antone's and their gear would be in almost garbage bags. They
hardly had cases! I didn't want to go to work for that bunch! It
scared me. But when Delbert McClinton stopped working, I needed a
job, and a friend of mine had gone to work for the Thunderbirds as
their sound engineer. He called me up and said, 'We're looking for
a tour manager. (I had never done that before.) We're going to
Europe in six months for about six weeks. Are you interested?' I
had never been to Europe at the time and I really wanted to see it.
I'm a fairly organized person; I had been watching tour managers
for Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, Jerry Jeff Walker, and
Delbert for five years. I thought I could probably do the
job."

Today, I’m excited to welcome a guest who may well have been at
that gig, too, long time Stevie Ray Vaughan and Fabulous
Thunderbirds tour manager Mark Proct.

Order Home Today, Gone Tomorrow by Mark Proct,
available from Amazon.com by clicking on the book cover above!

Proct has just published Home Today, Gone Tomorrow:
Snapshots from 40 Years on the Road – Austin and Back, a
collection of snapshots from his four decades on the road with
musicians, including Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Delbert
McClinton, Carlos Santana, Jimmie Vaughan and the Fabulous
Thunderbirds, and, of course, Stevie Ray and Double Trouble.

MARK PROCT podcast excerpt: "I
was a serious New Yorker with a heavy accent and fairly long hair
when I got to Austin in 1975. The first job I got was as a sound
technician on the road with the tech crew for Willie Nelson... I
had never been to West Texas before. Those were some serious
rednecks. Fortunately, I had a couple of people on Willie's crew
that were 6'2", 6'3", and they watched my back all the time so I
didn't get in too much trouble."

We recorded this interview on August 27, 2015, which was the
25th anniversary of the helicopter crash that took the life of
Stevie Ray Vaughan. The book is heavy on photos and light on
stories, but I’m told Proct has the gift of gab, so let’s put him
to the test.

Key interview moments:

• 6:25 Mark Proct discusses being a
native New Yorker working for Willie Nelson and touring East Texas
in the mid-1970s;

• 14:00 The state of the Fabulous
Thunderbirds when Proct agreed to become the band's tour manager in
Europe -- even though he had never been there before;

• 42:30 What it was like visiting the
site of the helicopter crash the morning after the accident that
took Stevie Ray Vaughan, two members of Eric Clapton's crew, a CAA
agent, and the pilot.

About the Podcast

What is Mr. Media® Interviews? The curiosity of Terry Gross, the skepticism of John Oliver, the unpredictability of Howard Stern, and, on occasion, the zen of Jon Stewart! Since February 2007, more than 1,300 exclusive Hollywood, celebrity, pop culture video and audio podcast and print interviews by Mr. Media®, a.k.a., Bob Andelman, with newsmakers in TV, radio, movies, music, magazines, newspapers, books, websites, social media, politics, sports, graphic novels, and comics!